GTA Series Didn't Really Begin As Dinosaur Video Game, Original Dev Says

Update: GTA prototype creator Mike Dailly has denied that the game's tech demo was ever dinosaur-themed. Speaking to PC Gamer, Dailly said it had used "code framework" from an earlier project that was "based on Cavemen and Dinosaurs," which could account for the confusion.

GTA 5 might be one of the best-selling games ever, but the Grand Theft Auto series wasn't always a surefire hit. In a recent interview with the BBC, early Rockstar North employee Colin Macdonald noted that GTA 1 was initially based on a tech demo that featured a dinosaur rampaging around a city--and that it was considered a long-shot at success by staffers at the time.

Macdonald said that one of the original programmers at Rockstar North (then known as DMA Design), Mike Dailly, developed the tech demo in order to explore the possibilities of a top-down perspective. After adding moving cars to the city in order to give it some life, one employee suggested that it would be more fun to control one of the cars rather than the dinosaur, and that determined the future scope of the project.

Macdonald also told the BBC that during GTA 1's development, the company's staff voted the project as the least likely to succeed of their current crop of games in development. He said that the game was buggy and difficult to play at that time, though it came into its own in the last six months of development.

In other GTA news, Rockstar recently announced that it'll continue to support role-playing servers, as long as they don't have NFTs. We also know that the development of GTA 6 is well underway thanks to one of the biggest leaks in video game history earlier this year. Based on current plans, it will likely feature two main characters in a Bonnie and Clyde-style relationship and will be set in Vice City.